Aligning with Grace

I drove over to the other side of my beloved river this glorious Sunday morning for a yoga class for the first time - not quite three and half weeks after surgery. I was going to observe a class taught by a wonderful Inspired Anusara Yoga teacher. I did not think I would actually do all of the class - perhaps just some poses here and there. It was a Level 1-2 class that ended up being perfectly sequenced for me, and consisted of very basic poses that we worked very deeply. After all, what is advanced yoga? Just the other day, I read this quote on Facebook by Lois Nesbitt , who was my own assessor and mentor in my certification as an Anusara Yoga teacher years ago, and who currently serves with me on the Anusara Yoga Curriculum Committee: "Advanced poses do not make an advanced yogi. You have to work this thing from the inside out. Otherwise, head for Cirque de Soleil." And this coming, from one of the most advanced practitioners that I know! So, we worked as advanced yogis...

Last weekend at this time, I was just concluding a workshop with Christina Sell on sequencing and using themes in the teaching of yoga. All week, I have been reflecting on some of her insights and the art of teaching in general. Christina, a gifted certified Anusara Yoga teacher, was witty and inspirational at the same time, and just what I needed, as I face surgery next month, and a subsequent hiatus from teaching during the summer. Every teacher finds him - or herself - fresh out of ideas, and perhaps needing to take a break at some point in time. And, in 14 years of teaching yoga, I have not taken a break of more than a couple of weeks, at the end of a session. So, while I focus on physical healing, I am hoping to also "reclaim" some inspiration, and come back "refreshed." I have been having difficulty coming up with themes lately. Ironically, this has always been the easiest part of lesson planning for me! In fact, just today, someone wrote me asking me about...

Do you have a calling? Do you know what that calling is? Don't think you do? Well guess what! We all have one, and some of us take a while to find out what it is. For some, it takes a whole life time... As a child, I remember being asked what I wanted to do when I grew up. I would often respond, that I wanted to help people. I really had no idea what that meant, but somewhere along the way, I thought studying psychology would be the way to live out my calling. And then I studied theology in the early 70's, when so much change was in the air, and thought this would be my route. The one thing I said I would never do is teach. Yes, really... Seriously! It was the one thing I was bound and determined NOT to do... But God, the Universe, or whatever, had other plans for me, and through a series of circumstances, I wound up teaching high school one year while I was finishing my Master's degree, because I needed a job. Desperately. I was offered a job on the spot and I took it. Tha...